ENGL 393 - Topics in Literature in English from 1700-1900

Credits: 3 in fall or winter, 4 in spring

Winter 2020, ENGL 393A-01: Topics in Literature in English from 1700-1900: Early African-American Print (3). An examination of the early decades of African-American print culture as a way to explore the larger development of print in the early American republic and through the 19th century. We pay particular attention to the collective development of Black print personas and public discourse as well as to the early African-American novel. We also consider the ways in which print—black type on white pages—served as a metaphor for (re)producing racialization. Possible writers and texts include Phillis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass’ Paper, James McCune Smith, the “Afric-American Picture Gallery”, William Wells Brown, and The Garies and Their Friends. There are opportunities for archival research, either through Special Collections or digital databases. (HL) Millan.

Fall 2019, ENGL 393A-01: Topics in Literature in English from 1700-1900: The Global 19th Century (3). This course analyzes the various (inter)national, political, historical, cultural, and ultimately literary impacts of the increasingly interconnected world of the 19th century. Because covering a century in any single location is already a tall order, the course introduces students to thematic connections and ways of reading to inform discussion and research. Using what critic Lisa Lowe calls “the intimacies of four continents” as a foundation, students juxtapose the emergence of European liberalism with ongoing settler colonialism in the Americas, forced Indigenous removal, the enslavement of African people, and trade in Asia. Potential authors and topics include: Equiano, Irving, Apess, Douglass, the Haitian Revolution, racial classification/taxonomy, trade/economy, Latin American wars for independence, The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, the Spanish-American War, fashion, Chinese indentured labor, Indigenous resistance, modernization, and immigration. (HL) Millan.